West Leadership Weekly Round Up: September 18th - 22nd

Hello!

We had another busy week here at West Leadership Academy!

This week the class was able to continue through some important lessons in our curriculum which included finishing up our time capsules, community building activities, and starting our What is Race unit.

On Monday, we finished up working on our time capsules from last week. Many students enjoyed writing about themselves, their hopes and dreams, and what they plan to accomplish this year. Several students brought in items to place into their time capsules from the weekend and throughout the week. Students had a great time sharing some of the items and associated stories with their classmates. This was a great activity to get to know one another better and we can't wait to open them at the end of the year!

During our Tutoring Tuesday time this week we focused on completing homework as well as discussing some general study skills and organizational habits. Going forward, we will be completing ongoing grade checks once more grades are uploaded onto Infinite Campus. On Wednesday and throughout the rest of the week we spent time on our Race unit. The unit has been a very interesting one and students are certainly engaged with the material. With many new vocabulary words to learn, we spent each day reviewing these terms and their applications. Students came with a wide variety of stories and perspectives on topics such as race, culture, ethnicity, implicit bias, and privilege. We will be continuing this unit into next week and we hope to continue the thought-provoking conversations and classroom community building.

Looking forward to another fun week! -Ben

West Leadership Weekly Round Up: September 11th - 15th

Hello!

We had another fast, fun, and busy week here at West Leadership Academy!

This week we were able to work through some major components of our unit on community which included discussions on social and emotional learning, an introduction to mentoring, an overview of scholarship and academic study skills, and even a time capsule activity.

On Monday, we followed up with our conversation the previous week on Social and Emotional learning and wrapped up our discussion on all of the major tenets. We then spent our shortened Tuesday focusing on tutoring and homework help. This will be an ongoing theme on Tuesdays throughout the year and this week most students needed support in Math and Geography. As the year progresses we can be sure to expect this dedicated time to be even more important and will include weekly grade checks and support in advocacy with teachers.

Finishing out the week we had several YESS core lessons and subjects to discuss and the students really seemed to take to them. First, we introduced the students to what mentoring is and what it looks like. Many seemed surprised by how impactful mentorship has been in so many successful people's lives. Additionally, I was very happy to see students so eager to want to participate in the mentor leader position. Beyond the obvious benefits of the position (such as pay), many students seemed excited with the prospect of leading their fellow classmates as well as gaining valuable experience for their college and post-secondary resumes. After this engaging discussion and introduction, we spent our time on Thursday introducing students to the idea of scholarship and academic preparedness. After discussing what a scholar is, I then spent the remainder of our time providing a study skills and academic preparation workshop for the students. Many had questions ranging from time management to organization to test taking strategies so I felt this would be a helpful way to model what scholarship and academic study habits really look like. The students seemed to appreciate the opportunity to get their questions answered and hopefully we'll see some of these strategies in action with further modeling.

On Friday we spent the day discussing time capsules and filling out our time capsule packets. We discussed how time capsules are a snapshot in time and how we can use them to reflect on how we've grown, changed, and accomplished our goals over the course of the year. Over the weekend I've asked students to gather artifacts representing this time in their lives. This could be anything from photos with friends to receipts from their favorite restaurant to even concert tickets from a show. I'm looking forward to seeing what students come with on Monday and how much we will be developing together as a community when the capsules are reopened again in May.

Looking forward to another exciting week! -Ben

West Leadership Weekly Round Up: September 4th - 8th

Hello!

We had another excellent week at West Leadership Academy! Our week was shortened due to the Labor Day holiday on Monday but we were still able to accomplish a lot in our time together.

With the holiday on Monday and Tuesday being an early release day, our YESS students started the week with peer planning and tutoring. We worked together to identify courses where tutoring and homework help would be beneficial and then got to work in small groups. Many students shared a need for support in Math and English and so we decided to dedicate time each week to tutoring in those areas. From there we spent our Wednesday class creating shared agreements with one another that helped us establish a set of classroom community rules and expectations for one another. Our students did a good job sharing what their needs were in order to be successful and how they can support one another to accomplish their goals this year.

With our classroom agreements in place, students were introduced to the social-emotional skills curriculum on Thursday and Friday. We began by speaking about some relevant vocabulary such as social and emotional learning, meta-cognition, social awareness, and self-efficacy. Students had some excellent questions and shared their excitement with the prospect of learning more in our upcoming lessons.

Our week was wrapped up by a visit from the YESS Institute's College Navigator, Emily Webster. During Emily's visit, students got an opportunity to ask questions and speak about the college and post-secondary process. Our seniors also got to meet with Emily individually and discuss their specific goals and aspirations. Emily will be regularly working with our WLA students to help guide them through the complicated college and post-secondary environment and we are certainly looking forward to having her as a resource this year.

Next week looks to be another fun one as we will be working through our unit on community and getting a better understanding of how peer mentoring can be so impactful. We are looking forward to it!

West Leadership Weekly Round Up: August 28th - 31st

Hello!

Welcome to the YESS at West Leadership Academy blog! YESS is excited to partner with West Leadership Academy for another fun and exciting school year!

My name is Ben Sothmann and I am the new YESS Institute Program Manager at WLA. I am honored to be working with such dedicated and passionate staff and am excited about all that we plan to accomplish this year.

West Leadership Academy

In our first full week of classes, we spent our time getting to know each other, discussing classroom expectations, and the YESS program more generally. Each class period started with an icebreaker activity that asked students to think and discuss various questions related to their personal goals and our introductory unit of community.  The students and I enjoyed getting to know one another and discussing how we can help each other succeed and meet our goals as a class.

Our Monday lesson focused on discussing this year's syllabus and grade expectations. Tuesday was an early release day and we spent our time discussing our weekly schedule, possible tutoring groups, and complete a class team building activity. With Thursday being the last day of the week for students, we spent our class periods on Wednesday and Thursday to complete an Introductory Bingo activity as well the Community Yarn Toss lesson. Students seemed to really enjoy getting to know each other, opening up about themselves, and most importantly the snack prizes at the end ;)

YESS classroom at WLA

With so much taking place in the first week, I am very excited about all of the fun activities and lessons in store for this year. In the next couple of weeks our time will be focused on establishing a strong classroom environment as well as our introductory unit: Community. We are very much looking forward to another excellent year of YESS at West!